


Take a Break

by madcatm



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Exhaustion, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Sleep Deprivation, Sokka is a good friend, Suki is a good friend, Whumptober 2020, Zuko (Avatar) whump, Zuko is a dumbass, no beta we die like men, zuko needs sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:26:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madcatm/pseuds/madcatm
Summary: Zuko is scared of failing as the Fire Lord and will work himself to death to make sure he does a good job. His friends will not stand for this. Especially Sokka.Whumptober Day 23 - Exhaustion/Sleep deprivation
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar), kind of Sokka/Suki/Zuko if you squint
Comments: 6
Kudos: 171
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Take a Break

**Author's Note:**

> So I decided to do this instead of my economics work because I am really vibing with Zuko and have had a long week and I am so tired. I had wanted to do Whumptober this year but then I got kind of bogged down in work stuff, but that is all sorted now, so I'm going to have some fun and get catharsis of someone looking after their very tired friend/crush (not projecting at all). Honestly found it hilarious that the prompt for today was 'exhaustion'. I was like 'yeah I can work with that'. Anyway enjoy!

Zuko’s not sure of the time, but his inner flame is enough to know the sun went down a long time ago and is moving closer to rising every minute, even though the first rays of light have yet to creep over the horizon and light his dark office yet. He sighs and lifts his hand to his face to rub across his eyes. What he does know is that he’s not even halfway through the new pile of documents that landed on his desk yesterday evening that need urgently addressing. A new trade deal is in the process of being struck and of course it requires so many approvals and changes and reviewing of old laws and seeing what needs to be repealed. He’s been working constantly since they arrived, and even though he’s had two years of being Fire Lord to get used to these kind of sudden problems he still feels overwhelmed every time another this size crops up.

Zuko shuffles the papers as he puts aside another signed and sealed document. He badly wants a cup of tea, and almost convinces himself to get one, but that urge is overpowered by the knowledge that if he does he will likely fall asleep and so he doesn’t risk it. Instead, he refreshes his ink brush and hunches back over his desk, pushing off the creeping tiredness swearing to himself that he’s dealt with worse. 

  
  


Sokka emerges from his rooms early, he has to if he has any hope of practicing with his swords before it feels too hot to do anything but walk slowly around the palace or sit in meeting rooms. He is constantly grateful that even though Zuko and the other fire benders on the council have their whole ‘rise with the sun’ thing they never impose that on the actual meeting times. The hallways are still mostly empty at this time, but he still encounters a few servants on the early round or at the end of the graveyard shift and greets them, pausing to talk with those who look awake enough.

He reaches the hallway where Zuko’s room is located and stops before he walks past the door. He had heard that the Fire Lord (‘Fire Lord, Sokka will never really get used to calling his friend that),  _ Zuko _ had had a lot of work yesterday to sort around the newest trade deal so maybe he would appreciate the offer to do some sparring, let off some steam and do something other than paperwork and  _ worrying about  _ paperwork. Sokka’s only been in the palace as ambassador for a couple months but he’s already seen how committed Zuko is to making his nation better and repairing the damage they caused. He nods to the guards in front of Zuko’s door, not the Kyoshi warriors this time but ordinary fire nation ones. He knocks gently but loud enough to either wake Zuko if he’s not already awake or at least get his attention through the gigantic doors. 

“Hey your majesty! Rise and shine, I was thinking you might want a break from being a royal clerk for an hour and come do some sparring. Promise I’ll let you win...maybe...probably not. C’mon!” Sokka waits for a response and gets none then knocks again, louder this time. 

Still nothing. Sokka shoots a glance at the stern guards either side that he knows he’s still working to win over so he shouldn’t try to aggravate them, but Zuko’s like his best friend besides Aang (and Sokka  _ will  _ stand by the fact that he is more of Aang’s best friend than Zuko is, despite the Avatar always ducking out of that by saying Katara is his best friend). He pushes the door open finding it unlocked and shouts into the room. 

“Hey wake up lazy jerkbender, where’s that whole ‘inner flame, I rise with the sun’ mumbo jumbo? He says, doing a bad impression of Zuko as he does. He hears muffled snort from one of the guards and smirks that he might be doing better at the warming up than he thought. 

A quick look into the room reveals that not only is the bed empty, but it doesn’t look slept in, more so than the usual ‘quickly tidied by the palace staff once Zuko leaves for the day’ that it usually has. Sokka moves back out of the room and turns to the guard he thinks he remembers the name of. 

“Ming,” Sokka starts, getting the woman’s attention, “where’s Fire Lord Zuko?”

Ming turns her head enough to address him while trying to maintain an air of officiousness, but Sokka can see her expression is softer than he had noticed passing by. 

“I believe he’s in his office, Ambassador Sokka.”

Sokka sighs dramatically. “Then why didn’t you tell me that before I went banging on his door?”

Ming allows a small smile but it's the guard behind him that answers without turning his head. “Wanted to see what you’d do. Plus it’s not our job to stop you from banging on the door of an empty room.”

Sokka turns and laughs sarcastically. “Okay then well I’ll let you guys get back to guarding the Fire Lord’s bedsheets.” He backs away trying to keep eye contact with both of them, then turns on his heel and walks back down the corridor the way he came. He at least feels like the guards are starting to warm up to him a bit more if they’re making fun of him.

Sokka knows where Zuko’s office is, probably. He’s only been there a couple of times, but he knows at least it's not too far away from Zuko’s bedroom and it looks out on the turtleduck pond, so he’s got that to go on, as well as the vague memory of its location. 

He crows with victory when he turns a corner and spots the equally ornate doors at the end of the hall with a pair of Kyoshi warriors outside that he’s ninety-five percent sure is Zuko’s office.

He walks quickly to the end of the hallway, aiming to open the doors with a flourish and berate his friend for already being a boring old Fire Lord at the age of nineteen when a strong hand on his chest stops him and he realises one of the guards on the door is Suki. He smiles in recognition at his friend/ex girlfriend. 

“Oh hey Sooks! Didn’t recognise you-”

She rolls her eyes and cuts him off with another little nudge to his sternum. 

“It’s fine, Sokka, that wasn’t why I stopped you though.”

“Oh?” 

Suki darts her eyes back to the door and steps away a little, shooting a glance to the other warrior who nods and returns to her full focus to her job while they move a way back up the passage.

“Go easy on him today, okay Sokka? He practically hasn’t left that room for the last two days.”

Sokka frowns. “Wait what? Why? Is there something important going on I should know about?”

Suki sighs, crossing her arms as she drops back against the wall next to them. Even as she gives the appearance of casual, Sokka knows she’s still primed for any attack or anything unexpected and gives himself a moment for a little swell of pride for her skill and is again grateful that its her and her warriors in charge of looking after the best Fire Lord for a century. 

“You know the recent trade negotiations?” Sokka nods, “It’s just all the documents for that. He has a lot of things to sign off and check before the deal can be finalised.”

Sokka glances back to the closed doors, then back to Suki. “But that’s just a trade deal? It’s like the fifth in the last couple years, and not on the scale of the earlier ones. Surely he doesn’t have to be working round the sun to do everything?”

Suki smiles, but it has a sad tint. “Tell that to Zuko. He wants everything to be right, and be the very best Fire Lord. I’ve told him he’s already done that, but he won’t listen. I forgot that you haven’t seen this before, it’s what he does basically every time all the paper in Caldera basically gets dumped on his desk to sign off on, but honestly he’s been doing it more with the little stuff now a lot of the big stuff has been sorted. We tend to just wait till he falls asleep on the desk then move his sleepy ass back to his room to get a bit of rest, but we can’t talk him out of the office until then. He won’t talk much about it, but I think it's because he’s scared of messing up, missing something, I dunno. Baby Fire Lord guilt and everything.” Suki smirks at him and he laughs, but then returns his focus to everything she’s said and sighs.

“I feel like I should have expected that from him.” Suki nods but says nothing more. As they stand in silence, Sokka feels a plan forming. He glances at Suki who won’t show it, but knows she was watching him out of her peripherals a moment ago. 

“I presume part of you telling me this is basically ‘Sokka, your turn to have a go at dealing with the sleep deprived Fire Lord”? 

Suki’s smirk is almost disguised by her face paint. She shrugs. “Maybe, everyone else has had a go, and I mean, you’re here now,” she turns to face him more, pushing off the wall, “I honestly wouldn’t have come to get you if you hadn’t come by. We’re used to him being like this, but it’s also tough to watch. Maybe you will have better luck getting him to look after himself before we have to physically make him.”

Sokka smiles at her and pulls her into a brief hug. “I’ll do my best,” he says into the side of her hairpiece. 

They walk back to the doors together, Suki retaking her place beside the doors, going back into full Kyoshi warrior mode. 

Sokka changes from his previously planned approach, deciding to knock instead, as if Zuko’s been working for as long as she said he doesn’t want to startle an exhausted fire bender in a room full of paper. 

He knocks loudly and decisively, “Zuko? You in there, buddy?” 

He wonders for a moment of silence if Zuko’s already fallen asleep, but then a weary voice comes through the doors. “Come in, Sokka.”

Sokka pushes through the heavy doors and is greeted by everything he expected but kind of worse. There’s papers covering every square inch of Zuko’s large ornate desk, and in the middle of all the clutter, with the early morning sun peeking through the windows behind him, illuminating his silhouette. He would look almost ethereal in beauty was it not for the haggard expression surrounded by a few loose tendrils of hair falling from the precarious looking topknot, made worse by Zuko’s ever present scar, but it seems to be worse, redder around the edges like it’s been scratched at. 

Sokka quietly closes the doors as Zuko doesn’t look up more than a second from his current document. 

“What do you need, Sokka?” It’s said not unkindly, but with an edge that Sokka struggles to distinguish beyond just plain exhaustion.

“Don’t need anything stifu hotman, just stopping by.”

Zuko hums noncommittally. “Then would it be alright if I saw you later maybe? Not to be rude, I’m just very busy right now.”

Sokka nods as he moves to the side of the desk, gently moving one stack of papers out the way to sit down on the edge. “Yeah, Suki told me. She also said you hadn’t got some sleep for a while. What’s up with that man?”

“Like I said Sokka, I’m busy,” Zuko says, sweeping his brush across the page in front of him with some semblance of his signature. 

Sokka decides to approach things from a different angle. 

“You know I stopped by your room this morning. Went to see if you felt like a sparring session before the sun got to its usual stupid hot level.”

Zuko hums again.

“I was disappointed to not find you there. So!” Sokka says, rising from the desk with a small flourish. “I came to bother you in all your fancy firelord business. See what you were doing instead of sleeping like a normal person tends to do at night.” Sokka moves around, leaning down with his face almost level with Zuko’s to get a look at the page in front of him that Sokka has noted he hasn’t moved on from for a few minutes more than it should have taken him to read it.

“I got up early is all, needed to get a few things done,” Zuko says, trying to wave off Sokka.

This time it’s Sokka’s turn to hum at Zuko’s usually unconvincing lying. 

Sokka only leans over further, almost getting a mouthful of dark hair as he starts asking questions about the documents that he already knows until Zuko leans back to face Sokka. 

When he does, Sokka can see how tired his friend looks and he recognises again the weight on Zuko’s shoulders. “What do you want, Sokka? I told you, I need to get this done.” Zuko breaks off with a yawn that he stifles behind his hand. Sokka smiles, torn between the sadness at seeing how stressed and worn down Zuko clearly is, and how sweet he also looks, a thought which Sokka pushes back to focus on the former.

He plucks the brush out of Zuko’s unresisting fingers and lays it down in the ink tray.

The Fire Nation isn’t going to start the war up again if you take a nap, oh great Fire Lord.” Zuko opens his mouth to protest, probably with something about how Sokka’s being overdramatic, but Sokka jumps in first. “Zuko, seriously. You need to rest. You’re no help to anyone if you can’t think clearly, and you never know what you could do as a sleep deprived ruler! Order all the citizens to do the dragon dance, release all the komodo-rhinos into the streets for them to have a party, declare a public holiday for turtleducks! Actually, that one sounds kind of good, forget that one.” He can tell Zuko’s trying to stay looking mad, but he’s not doing nearly as well to hide the small smile at Sokka’s antics as he thinks. “What I’m saying is you need to get some sleep, or a spa day, or something. You can’t keep working like this. Please Zuko, for me?” Sokka adds as Zuko looks like he’s about to argue again. Sokka leans down further, tilts his head and does his best polar bear-puppy eyes to try to persuade him. If reason won’t work, maybe guilt will, that’s what Aang usually does to Sokka. 

Zuko closes his eyes against Sokka’s efforts, but when he does he yawns again and hunches in on himself. He sighs and Sokka knows he’s done it. He has to stifle his victorious grin as Zuko looks back up at him. 

“Fine.” He says defeated, but with enough annoyance that he’s ensuring Sokka knows this was his choice, however coerced. 

Before he can change his mind, Sokka swoops down and pulls Zuko out of his chair with one arm around his back to support him. “C’mon your royal jerkbender-ness, nap time.”

Zuko grumbles something under his breath about ‘interfering water tribe’ but Sokka pretends not to hear him. He won, and now Zuko’s gonna go not work himself to death, so Sokka doesn’t care what mr grumpy firebender has to say about it. 

Zuko puts up a small amount of protest at being half lifted by Sokka, but quickly gives up when it becomes obvious that it will take more energy than he has to extract himself from his hold. 

Zuko doesn’t register much after they leave his office, he thinks he spots Sokka giving a subtle thumbs up to Suki, but can’t be bothered to think any more about it. He knows they probably conspired against him, but with the way his body is feeling heavier and heavier with every moment since he was removed from his seat at the desk he feels like maybe they had the right idea. And even he cannot ignore the small feeling of warmth in his chest from his friends’ care.

They shuffle through the doors of his room and Zuko expects to be unceremoniously dropped on his bed, but instead Sokka lowers him gently, removing the stiff outer robe and his hairpiece but doing no more than that, and pulling the covers around Zuko. He sighs as he feels the welcome softness of the bed envelop him and smiles. 

“Thank you, Sokka,” Zuko tries to speak loud enough to be heard, but he’s not sure if he manages it before he feels sleep pulling him under. The last sensation Zuko registers, not fully sure if he’s dreaming, is the feeling of a hand sweeping his hair away from his face and pausing there. 

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this had a kind of Zukki/Suzukka vibe for some of this, but I fully blame that on the fact I've been reading salytierra's amazing [Heave Ho: sea rats and future kings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26530291/chapters/64666345) (go read it it's so good) for the last couple days and I love their dynamic.  
> Hope you enjoyed! Leave a kudos and a comment if you can! And feel free to point out any typos or give any other criticism, any and all feedback welcome.  
> Stay safe and hope you're all doing okay too :) <3


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